The Photon operating system must configure Secure Shell (SSH) to perform strict mode checking of home directory configuration files.

If other users have access to modify user-specific SSH configuration files, they may be able to log on to the system as another user.

At the command line, run the following command to verify the running configuration of sshd:

# sshd -T|&grep -i StrictModes

Example result:

strictmodes yes

If "StrictModes" is not set to "yes", this is a finding.

Navigate to and open:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

Ensure the "StrictModes" line is uncommented and set to the following:

StrictModes yes

At the command line, run the following command:

# systemctl restart sshd.service